First there was fantasycon, and then there was the copy-editing of The Adamantine Palace and then there was editing lots of family trees and then the Gollancz annual party and a whole gang of new faces that I have to remember and then more King of the Crags (75k words and buzzing along nicely now). The day-job is getting crazy (maybe having to go to California for a few days, maybe not, who knows, job’s on the brink of being finished and stuff keeps breaking…), everyone’s been ill but now we’re all better and I’m still almost a non-smoker (4 weeks now).

Eesh. I want a holiday. A proper, quiet, do-nothing-all-day-between-a-lake-and-a-mountain-holiday…

The first bound proofs arrived in the post this morning. As did the following from one of the Gollancz publicity team. Now, they might not be exactly impartial, but this is the first time anyone who didn’t have anything to do with creating The Adamantine Palace has written to me about it, so I’m just going to pretend that they’re impartial and revel in it.

“…I’m not usually someone to heap praise on a book I’ve not finished yet, but I just had to write and let you know that I took Adamantine Palace home last night and promptly missed my tube stop, I was so gripped. I’m around 150 pages into it (I was even late for a friend’s birthday as I lost track of time)Â and I already know that I’m reading my favourite fantasy novel in quite a long time… I’m absolutely gripped – the characters are fantastic, the backstage political machinations utterly gripping and not too complex or heavy to follow and the dragons! With the most sparse of descriptions, you’ve brought these things to life… Their size, their power, their majesty – I can see these things living and breathing (fire) and they’re awesome.

As I said, I’m only 150 or so pages in but you’ve got me. You’ve got me really good.”

Apologies to anyone who has/had to have some sort of social interaction with me with me for the next few days – I’ll try to keep the big happy grin under control…

I was kind of hoping that rewriting King of the Crags from the start, given the revised ending to The Adamantine Palace, would cause the circumstances of two rather important characters ending up in a room together with a crossbow and a heady portion of murderous intent to go away. Sadly, the character who contrived for this to happen has still managed to do so.

The first cut of a cover for The Adamantine Palace has arrived. I would post it up, but apparently it’s corrupted in such a way that only Windows Photo Gallery can open it. Go figure. Eventually, when I work it out, I’ll put it up here. OK, OK, now I know the difference between cmyk and rgb. Or rather, I know there is a difference. So here it is. I hope…

King of the Crags is about half done. Give or take. OK, will definitely be half done by the end of FantasyCon.